{"id":183202,"date":"2015-01-27T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/27\/fcc-to-marriott-go-cheney-yourself\/"},"modified":"2015-01-27T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T00:34:00","slug":"fcc-to-marriott-go-cheney-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/27\/fcc-to-marriott-go-cheney-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"FCC to Marriott: Go Cheney Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The FCC just made it clear to hotels and convention centers, you block WiFi, and <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2015\/01\/27\/technology\/fcc-wifi-hotel\/index.html\">there will be sanctions<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">After Marriott blocked Wi-Fi hotspots in parts of its hotels, the FCC sent a stern warning: don&#8217;t even think about trying that again.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">&#8220;The Communications Act prohibits anyone from &#8230; interfering with authorized radio communications, including Wi-Fi,&#8221; said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. &#8220;Marriott&#8217;s request seeking the FCC&#8217;s blessing to block guests&#8217; use of non-Marriott networks is contrary to this basic principle.&#8221;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Wheeler pointed out that the FCC&#8217;s Enforcement Bureau fined Marriott (MAR) $600,000 for blocking Wi-Fi, and said the agency will fine other hotels if they try anything similar.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">After being fined, Marriott petitioned the FCC to change the Communications Act so that it could block access to Wi-Fi devices in its conference spaces. The hotel chain said it needed to block Wi-Fi hotspot access in conference centers because attendees could launch cyberattacks on the company&#8217;s network or disrupt Wi-Fi service for the conference or guests.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Many customers were outraged by the petition, claiming that Marriott&#8217;s request for a conference center Wi-Fi ban was a veiled attempt to ban access in hotel rooms and lobbies as well.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course it was.<\/p>\n<p>Overpriced phone and internet has been a major profit center for hotels, and they are eager to find ways to get that money back.<\/p>\n<p>The law is pretty simple though:&nbsp; Civilians operating radio jammers is illegal.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it&#8217;s illegal for most law enforcement as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FCC just made it clear to hotels and convention centers, you block WiFi, and there will be sanctions: After Marriott blocked Wi-Fi hotspots in parts of its hotels, the FCC sent a stern warning: don&#8217;t even think about trying that again.&#8220;The Communications Act prohibits anyone from &#8230; interfering with authorized radio communications, including Wi-Fi,&#8221; &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997,985,1025,979],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-regulation","category-technology","category-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}